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Whether you are inside the classroom or outside on the playground, we need to ensure we are maintaining proper active supervision. Some great strategies for maintaining active supervision include: Position the Staff, Scan and Count, Listen, Set the Environment, Anticipate Children’s Behaviors, and Engage and Redirect.
So how do we use these strategies? Position the Staff focuses on placing yourself in a position where you can see and/or hear all children in your program at all times. That goes hand in hand with Setting the Environment.
Setting the Environment is all about ensuring the classroom, or the outside classroom, is set up in a way that limits behaviors and to where you are able to see across the space without any furniture blocking your line of sight.
Why is line of sight so important? Another strategy we can use is to Scan and Count! When you are scanning and counting, you are more likely to ensure all children are still within the boundaries you set for your program and that they have not wandered off. This can be a game changer during transitions as well! But with scanning and counting, you always want to ensure you lay eyes on all children, rather than going off gut instincts that tell you they are where they were last you checked. There’s a high probability they’ve already wandered off from their location and your count will be off.
Listening seems like an easy to grasp strategy, as we are always listening for children, however even moments of silence can be cause for concern and require need for checking in on the children.
And if we hear a conflict brewing, or telltale signs of challenging behaviors, we always want to jump in to Engage and Redirect. When possible, we want to encourage children to learn to solve conflicts, so some children may need additional guidance in navigating these new and frustrating scenarios.
As you know your own children, we greatly encourage you to rely on Anticipating their Behaviors. Since you know how they are likely to react to certain situations, you can often jump in and redirect before a conflict even arises.
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